Polanski, Coppola, and Baudelaire: Comparison of How They Imagined Their Cities Essay

The urbanized reality of life is taken for granted today by ordinary people. The concrete jungle of metropolis impresses its citizens and people who just arrive in such cities. In this respect, the life maintained in the cities is constantly developing over the concept of beauty of busy life. Such an equivocal idea is reckoned with the central significance of such places in contrast to other less attractive ones. People of art were always interested in how the flow of history changed the outlook of major cities in the world. Their “appearance” was added with a more technological and demographical approach. Still, the spirit of a definite city is genuine and unique due to the people living in it. Thus, the paper is devoted to the problem of the views of eminent people of art who saw the beauty and the ugliness of the city through their personal vision and with peculiar details in the shaping of reality. Well-known directors of the film, namely Roman Polanski, and Sophia Coppola, are represented in comparison to the outstanding poet Charles Baudelaire. The vision of the city provided by these three artistic persons impresses by the inordinate description of contextually hidden senses.

First of all, it is necessary to point out that three artists, as they may be called, were concerned with the beauty and coloring of different cities. It is known that every town or place where people are concentrated for a particular time lives with its particular story reflecting definite impressions on the visitors or those who adore them. Thus, the three authors are united in their urge to describe different cities, so that to make clear the whole prospective understanding of their uniqueness and splendor of what they represent in the sphere of art. Moreover, the core of discussion represents the nuances of art’s vision of the cities in their versatile and multi-dimensional outlook.

Looking at the three works by the above-mentioned authors, it is vital to make the first comparison or approach toward their cities. In this respect, one should be aware that the works can be graded according to [to time prospects. Hence the ascending scale of their works can be represented in the following way: Baudelaire, Polanski, and Coppola. The thing is that Baudelaire wrote in the second half of the nineteenth century, Polanski described the realities of the year 1937; Coppola outlined the beginning of the twenty-first century. One more feature of all three works is that they are related to definite cities which are not the same and still are influential in the world of art, economy, policy, etc. Thereupon, Baudelaire wrote about Paris, Polanski depicted his thoughts about Los Angeles, and Coppola vividly displayed Tokyo.

The splendor of the details and the manner of their representation also designate the works of the authors. Baudelaire, for example in his cycle of poems Flowers of Evil, tried to show the beauty of the blatant society. His description of people is so awful, from first sight, but an immature reader should bear in mind that the author projected the realism of his epoch along with the decline of morale and manifestation of decadence in art. This evaluation of the society was not accidental and of some less significance, but seen by the author in person. His adornment of festivals or balls of high society was apparent. In fact, the author took his thoughts out of the parties and in some respect orgies which were frequent in Paris after great balls or festivals, somewhere in the palace of eminent persons related to different major spheres of peoples’ activities. Baudelaire was realized the obscenity and depravity of the social development and the lack of morale in the upper layer of the society. However, the poet thought that such evaluation of people and Paris, in particular, is appropriate for the time prospects and social along with economic growth of the country.

Bourgeois class is the particular feature of the societal top of Paris. The characterization of Baudelaire’s vision of Paris can be described throughout the poetry of the author due to the assertions of other critics who examined his works: It is the gaze of flaneur, whose mode of life still surrounds the approaching desolation of city life with a propitiatory luster (Leach, 1997). Baudelaire can be assimilated with Polanski in similar thought that the old city reminds people of their mad time:

Suddenly enriched my fertile memory, as I crossed the newly built Carroussel. Old Paris is no more (the form of a city Changes more quickly, alas, than the heart of a man) (Baudelaire, 1992).

Sophia Coppola can be compared in Baudelaire’s desire to depict the turmoil of the city and an individual seeming in it without deserved attention. Moreover, Coppola’s film also describes fashionable trends of people living in such densely-populated city, as Tokyo. In fact, both valued their vision of big cities on the examples of capitals. However, Baudelaire imagined Paris, as the place where ugliness of peoples’ nature can be present and implemented. Such assertion of his poetry promotes the idea that he was rather eccentric in commenting the society which does not value the real art of beautiful. Following the manifest by Theofile Gautier Charles Baudelaire stated deeper interest in the city of Paris which stands for the prevalent significance of the bourgeois layer of the society in its particular featuring.

The story screened by Roman Polanski in 1973 Chinatown is the splendid depiction of the USA after the years of the Depression. In this respect one simply may imagine the struggle of different gangs in their urge for the domination. Such idea is performed in the city of Los Angeles. Polanski looks at his mastership philosophically. He tries to recover the whole picture of capitalization and troubles which may appear due to it. In particular he feels that big cities cannot but undergo though the corruption of public officials contrary to the public interests and national security. Provided in the particular genre of film noir the film bears the atmosphere of 1930s when corruption was everywhere and, in fact, it made some clans at prior positions in contrast to other ones. Moreover, Polanski tried to develop the scenes just like they were at that time: At the same time, one encounters an opinion that there is something profoundly un-American in the cynicism and despair which permeates the social vision put across in this genre (Mazierska, 2007).

Similarly to Baudelaire Polanski reaches the notion that the atmosphere of the definite city should be shaped and illustrated with strict points on the whole atmosphere and spirits of it. Furthermore, it should be illuminated with emphasis on the trendy tendencies of time reflected on the behaviors and manners of people living at that particular period of time. Polanski differed from his contemporaries in rather straightforward and honest description of the situations provided in the city of Los Angeles notwithstanding the impacts of censor machine. In this case he director of the film never loosens the purse strings in giving truthful evaluation of the gangster epoch and what it comprised in the historical cut. His character was reflected in his film.

Chinatown by Roman Polanski can be directly compared with Coppola’s film Lost in Translation. The atmosphere of the cities in both films makes a viewer realize what authors wanted to depict in the noisy character of metropolis. Moreover, it was greatly depicted on the scenes of symbols of Hollywood in Los Angeles and noisy movement of people day and night in Tokyo.

Lost in Translation is the representation of a man’s life in a big city where the communication is interrupted because of the language gap. Coppola provides her understanding of the city of Tokyo, as the place where cultures collide and the human approach is based on the adherence to high technological grounding of the new era. The developed city of Tokyo in the twenty-first century follows the flow of changes. All scenes show the reliance of new outlook of humanity according to the main requirements of the contemporary society and individuals living in it. Tokyo is the place where people gain best moments of life. Such assertion can be made due to the story of main characters. Coppola tried to evaluate the idea of foreign big city in terms of its possibility to make people lost and confused about life.

The lifestyle of ordinary American people is contrasted in terms of Tokyo. The civilization is highly developed in this place, but the decline in understanding is apparent. Furthermore, the approach of Western ideals for life confronts with another reality enclosed in the peculiarity of the city and its citizens. In this respect the Western loneliness is displayed by Coppola in a vivid picture of peoples’ differences as of culture and languages (Matzke, 2006). This idea is emphasized in the scene when Japanese people intentionally said sound ‘r’ instead of ‘l’. Nonetheless, the evaluation of the individuals in this big city can be compared with suchlike “lost” life of people living in 1930s in Chinatown by Roman Polanski. He used specific language of gangsters and the manner of clothing which was particular for that period. Coppola seems to inherit the peculiarities of the description of city life from her predecessors, namely Charles Baudelaire and Roman Polanski. Her ability to describe the city from its socio-geographic view intends a viewer to feel the difference of Tokyo in its gigantic flow of development: For the metonymy of this effect, consider the graying, flat skylines of high-rise Tokyo and the romantic dead-end entropy set in loser bars and bad whiskey ads (Shukla and Tinsman, 2007).

Here the capability of the author to contradict the features of the city toward the characters of people living in different societal and cultural dimensions serves, as the main impulse for Coppola’s imagination of city. To say more, her vision is considered with the estimation of cultural achievements of the US and Tokyo, so that to relate it somehow to the observation of real life. In other words, the director of the film is able to show the magnificence of the city and the misery of an individual by means of visual aids. So is Polanski, when comparing two films. Charles Baudelaire should be correlated in this respect, as one who began generating ideas of everburning urge for the city where he surveyed situations and events of various extents of amorality and disgrace.

To sum up, three works showed their similarity in how the authors are able to depict their passion toward the city. Moreover, each of them, Baudelaire, Polanski, and Coppola, display the honest intentions as of realistic observations maintained in the cities which they described. It is vital to admit that the city is not so important without the contingent of people inhabiting it. Thus, the story of the city lives until people follow their particular cultural peculiarities. In other words, three authors with a particular enthusiasm defined the relation between big city and its population as for domains of activities. In this respect the Polanski and Baudelaire can be united in their search for the “old” city with bygone traditions or manners provided within people. Baudelaire and Coppola are united in their ability to show the realism of the city life at the time when they worked. Polanski and Coppola can be considered, as those who share the American values in their historical cut. Such interpretation is applicable to the idea of Western loneliness in the world due to the concrete jungles of American cities in contrast of suchlike cities in Asia. Hence, the spirit of every big city lives with its citizens.

Bibliography

Baudelaire, Charles. 1992 C Flowers of evil and other works, A Dual-language book. Dover foreign language study guides. Translated by Wallace Fowlie. Mineola, N.Y: Courier Dover Publications, pp. 74.

Leach, Neil. 1997 Rethinking architecture: a reader in cultural theory. London: Routledge, pp. 37.

Matzke, Christine and Muehleisen, Susanne. 2006. Postcolonial postmortems: crime fiction from a transcultural perspective. Volume 102. San Diego, CA: Rodopi.

Mazierska, Ewa. 2007. Roman Polanski: the cinema of a cultural traveler. London: I.B.Tauris, pp. 173

Shukla, Sandhya Rajendra and Tinsman, Heidi. 2007. Imagining our Americas: toward a transnational frame. Atlanta, GA: Duke University Press.